Satire

It's Tuesday, March 13th.

US Vice President Dick Cheney asserted yesterday that a withdrawal of troops from Iraq would represent - quote - "a full validation of the Al Qaeda strategy."

Currently, reached for comment in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden denied that this was indeed a 'full' validation of the Al Qaeda strategy.' For a full validation, the terrorist group called on the US to now invade Iran.

This is The Current.

Indonesian Disasters – Journalist

General Sukarno, who led Indonesia to independence from Dutch colonial rule, famously adopted an Italian phrase meaning "living dangerously" for his National Day speech back in 1964. And that expression seems more painfully apt than ever for Indonesia.

In the two-plus years since an estimated 160,000 Indonesians were killed in the 2004 tsunami, thousands more have died in earthquakes, hundreds have perished in landslides and floods and hundreds more in plane crashes and ferry accidents. There have been three aircraft accidents involving Boeing 737s since New Year's Day. Infact, more people died in disasters in Indonesia than in any other country last year. And as if to add insult to injury, the environment ministry says 2,000 of the archipelago's 17,000 islands could disappearing under rising sea levels caused by climate change over the next 25 years.

As Indonesia seems to be in the crosshairs of catastrophe, questions are being raised about how much is bad luck as opposed to bad management and how much poor government planning and inaction have worsened the impact of disasters or even played a role in causing them. Paul Dillon is a Canadian journalist in Indonesia, and we reached him in Jakarta.

Indonesian Disasters - Environmentalist

If the Indonesian government's infrastructure appears ill-prepared for another catastrophe, some answers may lie in the preservation of the country's delicate environmental infrastructure. Many experts believe that the devastation of the 2004 tsunami could have been mitigated substantially if the mangrove forests had not been largely uprooted from Indonesia's coastlines where they could have kept the water from surging inland.

Then there are Indonesia's great rainforests, which account for about 10 percent of the tropical rainforests left in the world. Illegal logging, fires and reckless development including too may malls and shopping centres have been blamed for last month's floods in Jakarta, which killed dozens of people, displaced hundreds of thousand from their homes and left 60 per cent of the city under water.

For more on the role of the rainforest in Indonesia - and to look at a unique plan by the government to put an end to deforestation – we were by Farah Sofa. She's the deputy director of Friends of the Earth Indonesia, and we reached her at her office in Jakarta.

Indonesian Disasters – Disaster Expert

When you look at the disaster record of Indonesia, it doesn't merely seem like ill fortune. After all, it's not just seismic events that seem to happen more in Indonesia. It's enough to make you wonder if there's a connection between -say - a plane crash on Sumatra and a flood in Jakarta.

To look at whether Indonesia's cluster of disasters is more than just bad luck, we were joined by Debby Guha-Sapir. She's the director of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Leuven in Brussels, Belgium, and she has conducted much of her research in Indonesia. We reached her at her home in Brussels.

Listen to The Current: Part 1

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 2

Turkey – Creationism Documentary

The battle between creationism and evolution is a familiar debate in many North American classrooms. You may remember a documentary we aired earlier this year about "Biblically Correct" tours of museums in the United States where creationists take students through a museum of natural history to dispute Darwin's theory of evolution.

Today we have another story about this ongoing clash of ideas but from a country you might not expect. In Turkey, 700 academics have filed a case against the government to stem the increasing presence of creationism in science classes. Teachers and academics are concerned that a powerful creationist lobby is exerting more and more influence on the country's government.

And, this war between theology and science is creating some strange bed fellows as US Christian fundamentalists are joining forces with Muslim creationists in an effort to change the teachings in Turkey's classrooms. Freelance broadcaster Dorian Jones has prepared a documentary on what is becoming an increasingly bitter dispute over the mind of the country's children.

Music Bridge

Artist: Don Rooke
Cut: CD1 “Nuevo Laredo”
CD: “Atlas Travel”
Label: Black Hen Music
Spine #: BHCD14732

AIH Promo

Starting tonight, CBC Radio's As It Happens follows the road - the road to Kandahar. A special series tells the story of the Canadian army's fight to drive a highway into Taliban territory - and the insurgent's fight to drive them back.

Over the next four days, As It Happens will bring you the story of the battle for Strong Point Centre - and the road on which that battle took place. We aired a small taste of what's to come with some tape of Lieutenant-Colonel Omer Lavoie speaking to As It Happens' host Carol Off as he describes how he reacted to the first shots in a fire-fight with insurgents.

CBC Radio's As It Happens can be heard 6:30 local time, 7:00 in Newfoundland and parts of Labrador.

Listen to The Current: Part 2

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 3

Nuruddin Farah Feature

There are stirrings of hope once again in Somalia. The first troops of a projected force of 8,000 African Union peacekeepers have arrived in Somalia. They will support the Interim government's return to the country's capital Mogadishu, following the ouster of the Union of Islamic Courts government … a regime accused of being the African equivalent to Afghanistan's Taliban.

But even as the country wonders whether the first legitimate, central government in 16 years will finally pull Somalia out of a dark age of poverty, anarchy and chaos... violence has again returned to Mogadishu. Insurgents are staging gun battles with peacekeepers, threatening to add to Somalia's toll of dead … according to a human rights group, last year 1,700 Somali civilians were killed. Caught in the crossfire of a seemingly endless cycle of violence.

Yet somehow, Nuruddin Farah has found poetry and inspiration in Somalia, even as he satirizes its foibles and deplores the violent men who have so debased and cheapened life in his home country. Mr. Farah is one of Africa's most revered authors, having written such trilogies as Blood in the Sun and Variations on the Theme of African Dictatorship. His new novel is called Knots. Its central character is a Somali-Canadian woman named Cambara who makes a jarring return to Mogadishu. Nuruddin Farah now lives in CapeTown, South Africa, but he joined us in our Toronto studio.

Last Word – Refugee Song

In Nuruddin Farah's novel, the protagonist's journey finally comes full circle with her eventual return to Mogadishu.But such returns are often the stuff of dreams for Somali refugees.

One such refugee is the singer Maryam Mursal. A vocal critic of the Somali government, she fled her homeland at the height of the civil war. She and her five children trekked across the East African desert for seven months, on foot, by donkey and by truck.

On the way, she wrote a song called "Refugee" which she recorded after seeking exile in Denmark. And we ended the program with that song. A song which Maryam Mursal says will not truly be finished until she returns to the country of her birth.

Music

Artist: Maryam Mursal
Cd: "The Journey"
Cut: CD 6, "Qax" (Refugee)
Label: Real World
Spine: 7243 8 45236 2 6

Listen to The Current: Part 3

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

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